The snow is driving down from the mountain tops whipping the uncovered hair of the hiker in front of me. I can smell his fear — frozen sweat clinging to his wind swept undergarments. He shouldn’t be out in this weather with only a thermal top and sweater.

This trek started out as most others. Assembling in the base camp over the course of several days, giving the sherpas time to freight the bulk of the camp’s needs up the mountain to the base of the west face. It will be colder on the west face in the morning. At this time of year it’s worth braving the cold for the extra margin of safety before the sun melts the ice pack making the ever-present danger of avalanche that much more likely.

This group was not unlike any other — even in their differences. There is always the loner that tends to keep to himself. This manifests itself as small piles of scattered litter off and away from the main party’s concentration of refuse. I am “the cleaner.” It is my job to follow along behind the main party cleaning the trail behind the trekers. It is from this vantage point that I have come to know climbers.

As I have already mentioned, there is always a loner, unique in his or her individuality in the party and universal as a constant presence in each and every climbing team.

The couple is another form that is always present. Whether a sexual liaison exists or not there are always the two that form a couple and hang with each other throughout the duration of the climb. The wrappers and discarded tins from the couple are typically just within comfort range of the main party, but distinctly separate in their placement.

Unlike the loner, the couple does not like to be more than a few feet from the main group. In fact, whenever possible they prefer to be surrounded by the rest of the party while maintaining their separation. This is especially true of littering couples that are also mating couples. It is almost an obsession with them to appear to be “just another two climbers in the group” — at least until night when they can perform their mating rituals in the hidden privacy of a tent. How anyone that has stood outside a climber’s tent watching the finely detailed silhouettes of propane illuminated lovers can dream of privacy is beyond me. This must be yet another symptom of the selective blindness that allows them to exclaim the wonders of snow-covered virgin mountains while a recently discarded chocolate wrapper drifts to the ground.

Being “the cleaner” is not the best perspective from which to develop a fondness for climbers. I don’t hate climbers — we don’t hate. It is not part of our emotional composition to hate. If it were possible to hate, I would hate climbers. Hating or not, I wish they would leave the mountains of my birthing and never return.

The main body of climbers is usually noticeable by its lack of definition. Within the main group, trash is uniformly distributed as a ring of litter around a small circle of cleanliness marking where they had their mess. I told this to “elder cleaner” once, he says it’s a pun. Apparently mess can indicate both the caloric sustenance they eat and the scattered wrapping from that same food. This is supposed to be funny. Amazing what the hairless bipeds find humorous. It must be a genetic thing.

Once the climbing party began the acent of the west slope it was too far for me to make the return trip each night to the holy place. Because of this my refuse holding sack under the fur of my back was almost full when the climber distinguished by being this party’s assigned loner, noticed me. A cleaner is trained from youthhood to be discrete. We are not ever supposed to be noticed by our assigned trekers. You can understand why I couldn’t ask the tribe for assistance can’t you?

The nature of my current dilemma has not occurred to any other cleaner — leastwise not within my cultural memory. When the climber noticed me, during my such unfortunate lack of discretion, he dropped a piece of litter and ran off in the opposite direction. At least I thought it was a piece of litter, but then I had my doubts. Without asking an older one I can’t be sure. I couldn’t ask a tribal elder without revealing my lapse in training. I couldn’t ask — don’t you see?

If “the loner” in his panic chosen to run toward the rest of the party I may have been able to casually asked a fellow cleaner. I could have nonchalantly asked while we were sitting around the edges of the encampment in the evening, “Say does this look like trash to you?” At which point he are she may have informed me in a jovial good-naturedly wayt that it was not standard trash. Then I could have secreted it in the loner’s tent, to be found later.

If only he had ran toward the climbing group, it could have all be so easy, but he didn’t. So I decided to do the “never done before”; I decided to personally return something dropped to a climber. It would have been so simple, if it was trash he could have thrown it away again, or keep it, if it wasn’t trash.

But as the elders are so very fond of saying “Life is as life is” and on this day the loner ran in the wrong direction. Night has fallen and the winds are whipping the snow into blusters of darkness, I fear that the climber will never reach his camp. I am further distressed by the excessive weight of the piece of questionable litter. If only he would stop lurching forward each time I reach out to give him the large fluffy item. I am afraid he if going to freeze to death before I can get a answer. And, he will be trash.

I can imagine the young ones running to the elders, taunting in their singsong voice, “Yeti Sat-Sun has brought another biped lump of rancid meat, Yeti Sat-Sun has brought another biped lump of rancid meat, Yeti Sat-Sun has brought another biped lump of rancid meat.”

As I toss the climber onto the holy trash pile, I can hear the young ones’ voices — no longer in my imagination.

I don’t think I am cut out to be a cleaner.

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